Hypercat yellow fog?

[schlger]

My first try of Hypercat gave me a strange yellow stain on the film base:

Developer reciep:

Solution A:
90ml Propylenglycol
10g Pyrocatechol
0,5g Ascorbic acid (ordinary vitamin C from the pharmacy)

it lastet about half an hour of stirring and heating to about 70°C, to get it in solution.

Solution B:

100g Sodiumcarbonate sicc. in 500ml destilled water

Working solution:
2,5 ml of solution A and 7,5 ml of solution B in 500 ml of destilled water.

The film was T-Max 400 35mm

I developed in a small tank with reels, one minute presoak in tap water, the water was replaced by nitrogen, the developer filled in, agitated by permanently inverting the tank for 30 seconds, followed by 4 invesion cycles every minute. Total time of developement was 16 minutes at 20°C. The color of the used developer was an intense magenta.
One minute in plain tap water as stop bath and 5 minutes in pH 6,5 - 7 color fixer and 6 min wash completed the processing.

The negatives had low contrast ( I estimated additional 30% of developing time). And the clear parts of the film were stained yellow, while the image had a brown stain. In small margins around the developed image densities, this yellow stain/fog did not show up, while it was visible again in larger shadow areas of the image itself.

I think, that the stain was supressed where byproducts of developement (bromide?) came in contact with the clear base.

1) Low activity of the developer (16 min and still underdeveloped) - what went wrong?

2) How to overcome the yellow fog/stain?

Thanks for your kind advice!
Gerhard

 

[juan]

I can't offer a solution. I can only say that based on my limited trials with Hypercat with JandC Pro 100 and Efke PL100 films, your results are not normal. I got rapid development - I don't remember times but more in the 6-8 minute range, and I got no particularly noticeable overall stain - image stain was rather brown. I also got plenty of contrast.
juan

 

[RobertP]

Schlger, I'm sure you will get some answers from hypercat users. I use a pyro/metol developer that uses sodium carbonate in the B solution. To reduce stain you may want to try reducing the B solution in the mix. I mix 1.1 and I think pyrocat hd is mixed 2.2. Your mixing 1.3 which makes me think max stain. Of course this may be formulated this way and my suggestion is off base. Just something to consider when your trying to reduce stain. I'm sure you'll get much better answers.

 

[JBrunner]

Before passing judgement on any pyro negative, it is best to print a sample to see where you are really at, as they tend to be much thicker etc. than they appear. I have no experience with Hypercat, but that is my experience with Pyrocat, and PMK Pyro. FWIW.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'll agree with what JBrunner says here. A pyro negative will usually print with greater contrast than would appear from looking at the negative alone, so you won't be able to judge the contrast of the negs until you have some experience printing them. Different films show different amounts of "background" stain in each staining developer, so it may or may not be normal. Also, pyro negs will often print differently on VC papers compared with graded papers, depending on the color of the stain.

 

[Ian Lascell]

My experience is with PMK Pyro, but with PMK the yellowish-brown cast is normal. In fact, the greater the stain, the easier to print. The first time I saw my negatives after PMK development, I thought something had gone terribly wrong. Contrast seemed low and they just looked strange. This was in a workshop with Gordon Hutchings. He saw them and said they looked perfect.

And once I started printing from them, it was clear that they were technically correct. Although I usually do have to bump the contrast up just a tad, the PMK pyro negs practically print themselves. As JBrunner said, try printing before getting too discouraged.

 

[gainer]

The stain that is more apparent in the clear and shadow areas of the negative will reduce contrast with VC and increase effective density with graded papers. It is like putting a yellow printing filter in the light path. Ideally, the stain should be proportional to the silver density, which would make it almost invisible except by direct comparison with an unstained negative.